This Might Be Scarier than Sponge Bob with a Speculum.

But you probably already think I’m odd and you’re still here, so really, that makes you kind of odd.

Which is probably why we get along so well.

Anyway.

It has to do with how much I dread a regular check-up like appointment I have to make with a certain specialist where I sit in an exam room so he/she can stare into certain orifices and pull skin to the side and poke around. It’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world. Like an invasion of my entire being. I don’t know this person. She doesn’t know me. Yet here she is, looking inside, inwardly (if not outwardly) judging my hygienic practices and probably how I wear my makeup.

Yep. I’m scared of the Eye Doctor.

What?

You thought I was going to say something you thought was uncomfortable like Gynecologist or Dentist, didn’t you?

Well. I have news. Those folks have nothing on Eye Doctors.

I’ve had the same Vag Guy for the past 5 years. I’m comfortable with him. My vag is comfortable with him. We know what to expect and how long it will take. There’s no guesswork involved — just some mild groping and a tissue sample. The entire yearly appointment takes all of 5 minutes for him to get in and get out. Wham, bam, ThankYouMa’am.

And the Dentist? Them’s small potatoes. You see the Dentist for all of 30 seconds at the end of an appointment, and he/she is always super nice in a desperate attempt to make up for the fact that everybody hates them. It’s the hygienists you have to bond with. Until recently, I had the same hygienist the entire time we lived here. Every 6 months, Penny was my buddy. She taught me how to floss properly, introduced me to Reach Gum Care woven floss, used water — not scrapers — to clean my teeth, and basically renewed my entire faith in the dental industry.

I think I’d rather get a pap smear by Sponge Bob than go to the eye doctor.

Okay. That’s not true at all. We all know how I feel about him.

(Seriously, I was going to try to find a funny Sponge Bob photo to put here, and I couldn’t do it. It was just too scary. You’ll have to use your imagination.)

Not to belittle the undoubtedly interesting and challenging field that is optometry, but I have to say — it seems a lot less exact than the previous fields mentioned, which involve things like lab tests and visual verification to determine when something’s out of whack.

Unfortunately for them, Optometrists have to depend on the patient for much of their diagnosis. And I’m sorry, but I’m just not a good patient.

When you shine a light in my eye and then 2 seconds later stick a steampunk machine in front of my face ask me to stare at a lit chart on the wall and ask me what I can read, I feel like laughing because it seems like you must be joking.

You just directed a light into my eyeball and now you want me to stare across the room and read?

I stare at a fuzzy ball, 2 or 3 lines down from the top of the chart, and make a guess.

You grunt, flip a switch, and ask me if the fuzzy ball is now better or worse.

Better or worse than what?

It’s still fuzzy.

You’re asking me to decipher the difference between fuzzy and fuzzy.

I get frustrated.

You get frustrated.

I feel like an idiot.

You probably feel like an idiot.

But hey — at least you’re getting paid for this.

And so it goes. Four appointments, 3 trial lenses, and hundreds of dollars worth of prescription drops and cleaning fluids later, I have to miss a half day of work today to pay you a surprise visit because I was up all night with an intense headache behind one eye. Because, I realize, my new prescription is much, much stronger than my old one. And I can’t see. And I want to cry. And I don’t want to see you, and you most certainly don’t want to see me, yet still here we are.

A different doctor every year.

So I know the problem must be me, which makes it even worse.

Always an ordeal.

Always an embarrassment.

I think it might be time to consider Lasik.

What doctor do you fear the most?

Katie

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Comments

yes. Lasik!!!….although that is a series of eye pokes, steampunk devices, multiple visits and when you can see out of your eye while the cornea flap is open during the surgery the only thing you can say is “woah” but really you shouldn’t be talking because the surgeon is trying to make very precise movement and you talking is not helping. And then, when everything is going hunky-dory, you get pink eye from your baby while on vacation and have to figure out “is my eyeball going to wither up and die from this infection because I just had Lasik 3 weeks ago?” I’d like to end this by saying, both my eyeballs are still fine and I LOVE LASIK!!!

I fear no doctor. No health insurance = No dentist. No eye doctor. No gyno. It’s been years. Once a year to the Channel 9 Health Fair for blood test, then find a PA to fill thyroid script and I’m done. Kind of nice.

I think I didn’t realize how much I disliked the eye doctor, until you clarified. I have HATED my last 2 eyeglass prescriptions, or at least how they turned out. I end up just not wearing my glasses for much of anything. Probably wouldn’t wear them if they weren’t on my driver’s license.

I still put the dentist (hygienist) up higher on the dread list, but ours uses scrapers, not just water. I’m wondering how that works and how I find someone who used that technique!

Mammograms are worst, because I keep getting falsely scary results, requiring more views and sometimes biopsies… But, phew, I got through this last one without a hitch!

Oh, and a word about Lasik… I am near-sighted and mentioned to my previous, much preferred eye dr., that my sister-in-law was getting Lasik, and asked him about it. He said, unlike hers, my eyes weren’t nearly bad enough to resort to that. He explained that as my SIL aged, she would quickly get to the place where she couldn’t read a menu without reading glasses, where, for more years, it might be a little fuzzy for me at first, but I could adapt and actually read it well enough to order and get what I intended. (I understand what he said now, as my sister and my hubby, who both always had perfect or better distance vision, now can’t dial a phone or read much of anything without their glasses) So Lasik might fix today’s problem, but bring on the reading glass thing earlier than you otherwise might need… So you’ll be forced back to the eye doctor, anyway. They have us coming and going…

I actually heard that’s a normal occurrence; however, I’d still take it. I have to wear my glasses for reading as-is. I’m far-sighted(?) where I can’t see things far away, but over the last 10 years it’s gotten progressively worse to where “far away” is a book in front of my face. So being able to see *anything* without glasses would be an improvement. Not to mention it would make travel a whole lot easier! :)

I actually HATE the eye doctor too (and dentist) but am also okay with my lady parts doctor… once I was SO anxious at the eye doctor that I almost passed out (the ophthalmologist, or whatever) flipped the chair upside down (practically) to send the blood flowing back up toward my head and brought me OJ. Needless to say that was the last time I ever saw him.

I’m also currently awaiting another pair of trial contact lenses which results in so many trips to the eye doctor that I should start sending them bills for my gas and wear and tear on my car. I could never do surgery since I get so queasy! Also, I was once told to ‘be careful’ since my astigmatism is SO elongated that my eye could detach itself (I just envision my eyeball falling out of my eye socket at some random, inconvenient time)… how do I “be careful”… do I just keep my eyes closed to make sure it doesn’t fall out?
And I’m sorry but why blow puffs of air on my eyes and make me jump. Can’t you just look at me and tell? Why haven’t you advanced your profession more than that by now?! I mean, people go into outer space but you can’t see my eye? Anyway… That was a fun rant :)

[…] the holidays sound like about as much fun as a simultaneous pap smear and eye exam (and you know how much I hate eye exams), so we decided to stay put and hope our families would change all of their pre-existing plans and […]

Archiving My Insanity.

Archiving My Insanity.

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